“So you want to protect this old nappy-headed colored boy because you know best. Jesus, Jimmy, you are as bad as white people.”
Jimmy didn’t know what to say to that.
“All my life,” George continued, his hands gripping the wheel in anger, “people have been telling me what I could or could not do, where I could eat, where I could sit. I marched with Dr. King because he thought we could change all that. Came away from those days with a scar and a good man gunned down. They have taken my home, they have taken my job. They have told me I wasn’t good enough or smart enough or decent enough to live in their society. They have called me every terrible thing they could think of, but they have never taken my dignity. Now you, my best friend, shit, my only friend, are trying to do just that.”
George wiped fiercely at a tear in his left eye.
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy said softly. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, you should. Who else have I got in this world besides you?”
“Your kids,” Jimmy ventured.
George scoffed again. “Kids. Hell, I hear from them maybe Christmas, when that daughter of mine sends a fruitcake. You ever eat a fruitcake? That’s a gift a man gives his worst enemy. It’s something you serve the guy who’s fucking your old lady and drinking your liquor while you work your ass off. Goddamn, I hate fruitcake!”
“It’s going to get bad, George. I’ve lived with much of this knowledge my whole life, and I don’t think
I’m
ready for it.”
“Let me decide whether or not to risk my life, Jimmy. You don’t have that right. Not with a grown man. Certainly not with a friend.”
Jimmy nodded, seeing him with a new respect. “You’re a stubborn man, George Watters.”
“Yeah, I guess I would have made a good Tlingit.”
Jimmy laughed and patted his friend on the shoulder. George was right; he would have to choose his own path. Jimmy was glad he was along and made a vow to try not to worry so for the life of George Watters.
There were plenty of other things to worry about.
As if to say things were settled, George found a Beatles song on the radio and got Jimmy to sing along with him. For a brief moment, Jimmy stopped worrying and let the music take him into a happier place.
They took the Lowell Street off ramp, as the directions had specified, and moved up past homes with large yards of geraniums and citrus trees. At Foothill, they turned right, instantly transported into a world of fast-food joints and small storefronts. At Boston, they turned right, past a Papa John’s Pizza and a private-high-school extension.
The Slater driveway was the first one on their right, the entrance almost invisible from the street. George pulled up in the driveway and headed uphill, the tires of the Lincoln grinding over the gravel driveway like a giant feeding on stones. The two-car garage was locked, and the driveway was empty of vehicles.
“Looks like nobody’s home,” George said.
“That’s good,” Jimmy said, “it will give me a chance to make preparations before they arrive.” He opened the trunk of the car and took what he would need.
Jimmy found a makeshift potting shed in the large backyard, the rich smells of loam and moist ferns filling his nostrils. There was a trowel lying near a stack of terra-cotta pots, its aluminum blade still caked with soil. He rubbed his thumb over the soil, feeling the goodness of it, the living energy still stored in its moist blackness.
Jimmy shucked his shoes and socks, then donned the heavy Chilkat cloak over his clothes
and placed the headdress over his long and matted hair. The costume was unbearably hot in this desert climate, but he felt a sense of power surging through him. He removed the large brass rattle from the shopping bag and a small sack of ivory talismans he had stolen from the Southwest Museum.
George, to his credit, kept quiet when Jimmy returned in his regalia. George stayed still, figuring Jimmy would call him if he was needed. Jimmy gave him a slight nod and headed down the driveway.
Using the sun as a guide, he found the four compass points at the edges of the Slater property. The edge of the driveway was the southern point on the property. He dug a small hole and chanted over it, holding aloft the talisman of Salmon. He shook the rattle as he chanted, its metallic tones as bright as the brass face flashing in the sun. Two small boys riding their bikes stopped to watch him from across the street. Such a sight would normally warrant laughter and catcalls, but neither made a sound. Certainly, they found the whole affair curious, but Jimmy’s reverence seemed to impress them enough to make them hold their tongues. They rode away in silence, neither sure what he had just witnessed. In the years that would follow, each would think of that moment whenever they experienced a bit of luck or felt particularly blessed. An old man passed by with his dog. Gnarled and bent, he stared at Jimmy. He wanted to know what Jimmy was doing, but he could tell it was some kind of religious ceremony. The dog sniffed at Jimmy, then licked one of his bare feet. The man and his dog continued on their way. Later, the man would realize that a pain in his spine had dissipated, and his doctor would cancel a dangerous and painful operation.
Jimmy finally buried the small talisman, shaking the rattle over it one last time. “Chief of the Salmon, bring prosperity and health to all that dwell within this place.” He repeated the ceremony at each of the other compass points, deviating only in his final prayer over each talisman.
At the west it was Bear and Wolf.
“Twin guardians, protect this place, use your teeth and strength to protect all within.”
At the east he placed the Killer Whale.
“You who dwell in deep villages, rise and protect my charges,” he chanted.
As he passed an old maintenance shed near the northern edge of the property, he felt a chill, his skin turning to gooseflesh in the oppressive heat.
The shed was an unimposing affair, the wood slightly warped over the years, leaving small gaps, the paint chipped away in places to reveal dry rot or termite droppings. The windows were caked with dust and cobwebs, and from where he stood he could smell paint and thinner, pesticides and solvents. There were probably a million such sheds in the country, housing junk and tools, chemicals and unfinished projects.
This one was different.
He looked down and saw a dead bird and two dead mice before the doorway. He knelt, feeling a slight wave of vertigo, and saw that the ground was littered with dead insects: flies, ants, termites, earwigs, and sow bugs.
He stood, remembering when he had last felt this way.
At the mouth of the cave that held The Faceless One.
It was less intense this time, more an ache than a sickness, more a sense of dread than of total terror. At first, he thought it might be his age; then he realized that his age was irrelevant. The mask was empty.
Men had removed the mask from its icy prison, and in so doing had partially freed The Faceless One. He now roamed a region outside the mask but also outside this world. It was a place the shamans had called Ta’at-kaa—the Land In-Between. The Faceless One was waiting, waiting until the mask was worn by the one would give him access to the world of Man.
How many had died so far? How many had touched the mask or transported it, their innocent contact providing a brief conduit for The Faceless One? Surely, everyone in Yanut, and everyone instrumental in bringing the mask to this innocuous-looking shed. Once the chosen person had donned the mask, become its portal, The Faceless One would terrorize and murder everyone on the continent—perhaps the world.
It occurred to him he might destroy the mask, burn down this shed and be done with it. But that was a thought not of his own mind. His uncle had taught him that The Faceless One was eternal, immortal. The only way to control him was to imprison him within the mask and keep the mask safe. If the mask was destroyed, the god would enter anyone he pleased, and Jimmy knew that no one alive—no one—had the knowledge, skill, and power to craft a new mask.
Rather than be tempted into doing something foolish and dangerous, he walked past the shed, to the far end of the Slater property. He stopped at the northernmost point, the direction of his homeland, the birthplace of The Faceless One so many centuries ago. He took the Raven talisman from the small bag, running his thumb over its surface, rubbed smooth after many years of use.
Yéil
, who was both Trickster and protector, who had brought him here from a life of stagnation and deadening comfort.
“Naas shagee Yéil,”
he chanted in Tlingit over the hole to the north, “watch over this house and keep all that is evil away. Guide my steps and help me to fulfill my purpose.”
He pressed the figure to his lips and kissed it. This was not usually done, but he felt compelled to do so. There was no one else from his homeland to help him, no one he could seek strength or counsel from. Still, if he must die in this sun-bleached land of too many cars and too many buildings, he was grateful that he would be useful one last time. Better to die this way than as a babbling old man with creamed corn in his toothless mouth, his pants soiled, and his gods
forgotten.
He knew who he was.
He was Jimmy Kalmaku. A Tlingit shaman and the last of his village.
No matter the cost, he would not fail.
The 747 was over Arizona, and Steven felt better. There had been no apparitions at the airport or on the plane. Liz was reading a
Discover
magazine, and Bobby was drawing and coloring animals on hotel stationery, committing them to the page from memory. Purple otters had led to yellow and red tigers, who chased green gorillas. Except for the colors, the animals were very well done.
Bobby held up his latest drawing, a lion with blue fur and an orange mane. The lion was growling, and he had remembered to add snarl lines to its muzzle; this detail added a surprising degree of ferocity to the child’s drawing.
“See, Daddy,” he says, “a lion.”
“That’s great, kiddo. How does the lion go?”
Bobby scrunched his face and growled, and Steven laughed. Liz looked up from her magazine and smiled. Bobby collapsed against his father laughing and Steven hugged him, managing not to get orange crayon on his sports shirt. Bobby seemed perfectly happy. He seemed to have no memory of his visions at the airport or nearly drowning at the memorial service. Steven hugged him again, grateful he was okay. If he ever lost Bobby or Liz … He shuddered involuntarily.
But why even think such thoughts? The ancients believed you called attention to yourself with such worries, that you tempted Fate or the gods into action. People said “God forbid” or “knock on wood” to make any potential curse impotent, powerless. He wasn’t sure he believed he was tempting Fate, but surely such thoughts served no constructive purpose. He decided to think about the scholarship program he was going to set up in Daniel’s name. The distant rumble of the jet engines, Bobby’s happy tune, these lulled him gently into sleep.
* * *
He was in his boyhood backyard. He and Daniel were digging for Pellucidar. Daniel was ten years old again, but Steven was still thirty. This disparity registered with Steven but seemed natural, the world of dreams operating on its own parameters of logic and chronology. Both of
them were dressed in cutoffs and superhero tee shirts, their uniforms of summer. They dug under the July sun, legs and arms tanned and splashed with dirt and mud. Daniel wiped a forearm across his forehead theatrically, leaving a trail of mud like war paint. His glasses were slightly fogged and drooping on his nose. He pushed them up, leaving another smudge. A warrior chieftain of ten.
“Wait’ll we get there,” he announced, “you’re gonna see some cool stuff then, Stevie.”
Steven dug farther down with his brother. He remembered how this came out. Their father had ended up grounding them for two weeks, and the five-hundred-dollar bill from the Department of Water and Power had cut into their Christmas gifts that year.
“We should watch out for the water pipe, Danny,” Steven said, trying to alter history with one small warning. He wondered if that would work. If it did, then it seemed that he had some other things to change if he could remember what they were.
Daniel looked up and grinned. “I’m not worried about a pipe, Stevie, and you shouldn’t be, either.”
Steven wanted to ask him what he meant but was afraid. If he didn’t know, whatever it was might not happen. They could keep it locked behind walls of silence.
“I like it here,” he ventured, glad to be with his brother and digging into the soft dirt under their swing set. They had wrapped the swings around the bright green poles of the set, the chrome chains coiled like silver snakes around metal tree trunks. The bright yellow seats of the swings swayed slightly though the air was still.
Daniel nodded. He surveyed the hole with all the seriousness his young face could muster. Steven knew he was imagining himself as Indiana Jones at that moment, looking for booby traps around the golden idol he had found. Since their father had taken them to the movie, he and Daniel had spent the whole summer battling blowgun-wielding savages, deadly cobras, and evil Nazis. Daniel had decided to refine his desire to be a scientist into the goal of becoming an archaeologist like Indy.
Daniel pointed at the left side of the hole, and they began to dig there, their shovels moving in a perfect rhythm, one emptying dirt at the side of the hole while the other bit into the moist earth.
Steven’s shovel struck something, and he thought it was the water pipe. But the object sounded hollow and not dense like a pipe.
“Hold it,” Daniel shouted, and grabbed a whisk broom from the side of the hole. Their mother used the whisk broom to clean off the lint trap in the dryer. She was not going to be pleased when they left it in the yard coated with mud and earthworms.
Daniel brushed away dirt like Leakey at Olduvai Gorge, the remnants of Early Man within his grasp. He dug a little more with a trowel he kept in his back pocket, then used the
whisk broom again, exposing a circle of brightly polished wood. There were a few scratches in the surface from their digging, but the bright finish caught the rays of the morning sun and made it shimmer like water in a secret pool.